Experiencing the Ordinary and Unknown

22 Feb 201511:50pm IST

22 Feb 201511:50pm IST

Report byPatricia Ann Alvares

Renowned artist and photographer Kyungwoo Chun’s performance art, ‘Ordinary Unknown’, at Sunaparanta today typifies his oeuvre of work which focuses on the physical presence of human beings and the exchange generated by their interactions

A dialogue with the self may seem passé in an online world
where we are confronted more by other people’s lives than our own. But here is
an artist whose oeuvre of work intentionally focuses on ‘finding the inner
voice’ by physical presence and exchange generated by the interactions of human
beings.

“Nowadays, we perceive things with certain intelligence as
we receive a lot of information. But there is no physical experience of space,
taste, touch and so on. These are virtualised. Hence, I want to make it
possible for us to be more concentric in our physical experience and discover
something new of the self in the process,” explains Kyungwoo Chun of his
unconventional experiments in performance art as well as photography, which
have been well received the world over, right from his native Seoul, to Germany
where he lives, to Europe and the USA.

Arranging meetings and interactions with groups of people he
does not know and who are unrelated to each other, sometimes ranging from 1,000
participants to just two, Chun avers that the process is an experience for the
participant as well as the public. “I draw the ideas from moments of everyday
life and try to give it a new perception. I initiate the process, but I share
it as a co-author with my participants. I let them interpret the role as they
like while tapping on their innermost sensibilities. I initiate the situation
where they not only confront their own nature, but that of others. Through
simple gestures, I invite a shift in perception – how we wish to be seen or how
we relate to those around us,” explains Chun of the process, which, he reveals,
evokes new experiences every time he tries it with a new group/individual.

Time is of the essence in these performances. “I try to find
my way of taking pictures of the process and feel the quality of time rather
than the amount of time spent together.”

In the realm of photography, his images are intentionally
blurred. “They are in fact sharp. The blurred image is a reference to the time
and experience in extracting the actual self. It may take a while, but the
realisation of the entire picture dawns slowly,” explains Chun.

On his first ever trip to India and Goa, he is enamoured
with the country of myriad languages, cultures and religions and the
interaction of the people thereof. A subject most suited to his unconventional
experiments, the first of which he will conduct today in Goa.

(Ordinary Unknown will be held at Sunaparanta, Goa Centre
for the Arts on February 22, 2015 at 6pm)